← Straight Shooter with Stephen A.
Straight Shooter with Stephen A.
Interview Only: Stephen A and CNN Attorney Elie Honig discuss Cassie's graphic testimony at Diddy trial.
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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
You're listening to an iHeart podcast.
- [00:06]
Stephen A. Smith
Welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non stop action and world class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The New York Liberty are the reigning champions and the Golden State Valkyries are the newest team to join the league since 2008. This season will be the first with Kelsey Plumb on the Los Angeles Spark, Parks, Jewel Lloyd on the Aces and Alyssa Thomas in Phoenix. Whether you're a lifelong basketball fan or new to the game, the WNBA invites you to be a part of something bigger. Catch live games, follow your favorite teams and witness history in the making. Watch the WNBA this season on ABC, CBS, ESPN, ION and Prime starting May 16th.
- [00:57]
Ellie Hoenig
AT&T has a new guarantee because most things in life are not guaranteed. Like getting through self checkout by yourself. Not guaranteed in a world where Nothing is guaranteed at&t is bringing something new to the table. At&t is introducing a guarantee with connectivity you can depend on, deals you want and service you deserve or they make it right. Learn more@att.com guaranty@&t connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com guaranty for details. We're going to get started right here in New York City in a federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial against Sean Dee Dee Combs. It was an emotional day in court as Cassie Ventura Combs, ex girlfriend and former bad boy protege took the stand and detailed their 10 year relationship. It was testimony filled with allegations of physical abuse and control that included drug fueled sexual encounters called freak offs with male escorts. Under Combs direction, Cassie told the jury that Combs would often beat her, leaving her with black eyes and bruises all over her body. Her lawsuit filed in 2023 became the framework for the government's case against P. Diddy. Cassie testified that her career as an artist ultimately became stifled because she spent most of her time fulfilling Combs sexual fantasies. Cassie is back on the stand today with more details of their relationship. Defense attorneys for Diddy maintained the sexual encounters between he and Cassie were consensual. This is just my opinion. I don't give a. I don't give a. Not even a little bit when you hear the details that we heard. Good luck with the defense deciphering the difference between sex trafficking and racketeering as opposed to domestic abuse and thinking that's going to win them a jury. I find it very difficult to believe that human beings are going to be able to disassociate themselves from the criminal kind of behavior she's alleged he has done. By the way, there is video of it and I don't know what level of access is going to be given to it, but it's spanning about 15 minutes. Remember when you saw him running down the hallway after her half butt naked with a towel wrapped around him? Remember that? It's right there. Remember that? Remember when he dragged her and threw it to the ground and kicked her? Apparently we only saw a couple of minutes, but that scene took place for about 15 minutes and now reportedly anyway, it's going to be released if it hasn't already for all to see. I don't know whether that's true or not. I just know that's very, very bad as it pertains to domestic violence not being a federal crime. That's more of a state crime. Good luck with convincing the jury of that. See my man Chris in here. I see my man Galen here. I see my man Russ in here. I got a bunch of people there. Jennifer's in the control room. How are you going to be able to hear evidence of black eyes, bruises over the body and urination on her and in her and disassociate that by saying, well, that's not really sex trafficking. That's not really racketeering. That's just domestic violence. So I'm gonna let them off. I don't know about that, y' all. I understand legally, if you're on a jury, that's what you're supposed to do. I don't know if you're going to convince jurors to do that. So in my opinion, it looks very, very, very bad for Diddy. It really, really does. Especially since the defense has all but said, hey, we understand his behavior was reprehensible, but that doesn't mean he's guilty of these two specific federal crimes. I don't know how you do that. I just don't. But that's just me. Better minds than me might be able to answer that question, which is why I'm going to my next guest. Joining me now to discuss the trial is CNN legal analyst extraordinaire, the one and only Ellie Honing, a frequent contributor to the show. Thank you so much. Always good to see you. Let's get right to it. I mean, I know Cassie is back on the stand today, but let's talk about yesterday. What were your pressures of what we heard in court from Cassie herself yesterday?
- [05:59]
Ryan Seacrest
I think she was doing what prosecutors need her to do, which, first of all, Stephen, is to come across as credible, to come across as sympathetic, to tell her story, to put the jury in her shoes. Remember, in a trial setting like this, the witness is sitting feet away from the jury, 5, 10ft, she is right there. And it sounds to me from talking to people in the courtroom and reading her testimony that what she talked about was clear. I think she detailed some really horrific experiences she went through, and I think she came off as credible. She didn't give the sense that she was stretching or going out of her way to say things that were damaging to Sean Combs. So I think yesterday at the, if I was the prosecutor, at the end of the day yesterday, I would have said, good, good start. We got a long ways to go, though.
- [06:41]
Ellie Hoenig
One of the things that, and I hate bringing this up, I certainly am not trying to, to just harm her in any way. I mean, I just want to say when she gave the details and then she talked about being urinated in her mouth, I just, I was so appalled, so taken aback by it. I know most, I can't imagine most human beings would feel any differently than me. That doesn't necessarily equate to sex trafficking and racketeering, per se, but how damaging is that in a case such of this nature against P. Diddy?
- [07:17]
Ryan Seacrest
Well, it's obviously visceral and revolting testimony for the reasons you said, Stephen. And I think it actually does raise that question, which is, was this voluntary? Because that's ultimately what the defense is going to be. And when you talk about acts like that that are so extreme, it becomes harder and harder to agree that something like that, what you just talked about would be done voluntarily. But you raise a really important point. And this is what the defense argued in its opening statement. And by the way, I thought this was an excellent opening statement by the defense. Sometimes you'll see defense lawyers get up there and say everything you'll hear from the prosecution is bs. Their star witness is a liar, they have bad motives. That's not what the defense did here. I think they very smartly said, I'm paraphrasing here, but they said, he's not a good guy. He's done really bad things. He had a drug problem. He was domestically abusive of, of Cassie. However, the defense argued that is not what he's charged with. And they're right. This is not a domestic violence case. This is not an assault case. It is a federal racketeering, conspiracy and sex trafficking case. And so I Think part a big part of the defense, and we'll see this, I think, when Cassie gets cross examined, probably late in the day on Wednesday, is you don't have to believe she's a full liar, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Even if what she says is true, this relationship, the defense will argue, was consensual, and it does not make Sean Combs a federal racketeer. I thought they did a really effective job of articulating that.
- [08:46]
Ellie Hoenig
But Ellie, what about the notion that it's 12 jurors? Right? It's 12 jurors. It's six alternates. They're human beings. And there is such a thing as hearing about acts, hearing about an individual that's so repulsive, so heinous, that you find yourself wanting to get him, even if the charges don't necessarily correlate with what you're hearing. We're talking sex trafficking and racketeering. But you might have people up there that says, I don't give a damn about the specific charges, his behind need to be in jail. How do you ward that off if you're the defense?
- [09:19]
Ryan Seacrest
100%. That is a dynamic in the courtroom. You know, I practiced in that courthouse for much of my career in the Southern District of New York. People have this misconception that the jury is sort of this monolith. All it is is 12 regular people, 12 people from Manhattan, in the Bronx, maybe Westchester County. They are subject to emotion like anyone else. And yeah, if you're the prosecution, you do want to inflame the jury. There's limits. But you want to show them that video. You want them hating him. You want them being disgusted. And I think what the trick is, the difficulty for the defense lawyers is you have to prevail upon the jury, say, look, you are not here to rule with your emotions or your heart. You are not even here to rule on whether he's a good person or a horrible person. You are here to rule on whether the prosecution has proved the specific federal crimes they've charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, by the way, I don't think the prosecution is going to be unable to prove its charges, but it is important to note that the charges are more dramatic and sort of more far flung than just domestic violence and just assault. They have to show essentially that Sean Combs presided over a criminal organization that had structures and procedures in order to promote and protect his career.
- [10:33]
Ellie Hoenig
Most of what was heard yesterday was about sex, drug use, domestic violence, as you just reiterated. But all of those essentially, especially the last, the latter is a state crime, by the way, but this is a federal case. Has the prosecution made the connection to the federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering yet in your eyes?
- [10:51]
Ryan Seacrest
So, no, not yet. I mean, they're still early in their case, but I think they'll get there. The racketeering laws, and I used to use these laws, charge these laws all the time, are very broad. And what they allow federal prosecutors to do, and again, this is a federal prosecution, is to pull in certain things that would otherwise be state crime. So, for example, domestic violence or just an assault like we see on that video, that would ordinarily not be a federal crime, but you can bring it into a federal court as evidence of the racketeering enterprise. And so, yeah, the allegation here is the racketeering enterprise committed a bunch of different crimes, including not just sexual assault and interstate prostitution, but gun possession and drug use and obstruction. And I'll tell you one other interesting feature of the charge here, Stephen. Racketeering definitionally means an organization, a group of people. I used to charge 25 person racketeering cases. I was doing mob cases. So it was more of a traditional setup. Sean Combs is alleged to be a racketeering enterprise of one. There are other participants alluded to, but he's the only person who was ever indicted. He's the only person sitting at that defense table. And look for his defense team to say they're overkilling this. They're telling you the man was a one man criminal enterprise. And I think prosecutors are going to respond, say, you bet, that is what we're saying.
- [12:06]
Ellie Hoenig
You know, Cassie Ventura is on the stand yesterday. And today we've seen images, footage of her being beat. We've heard about her being urinated on. She's an expectant mother. She's about to give birth. She's nine months pregnant. What kind of role, what imagery she provided with being pregnant, do you think that could potentially have on a jury, particularly considering her testimony at this moment in time?
- [12:36]
Ryan Seacrest
I think that absolutely matters. I take a very humanistic view of trials. I think they're all about the people and the personalities that are there in the courtroom. And, you know, it's interesting because the defense was wanted to prohibit her from walking in. Normally, the way it works is the door opens at the back of the courthouse and the witness walks right down the middle of the aisle, right past the jurors. And the defense said, no, judge, let's get her seated first so she doesn't have to do that. So it's less obvious that she's pregnant. And the judge denied that. The judge said, no, we're going to treat her like any other witness. So they obviously know she is very far along in her pregnancy. They can see it. She's sitting right in front of them. And of course that elicits some degree of sympathy. It humanizes her. It reminds them that she is a mother. She already has a mother, but she's a mother to be. And you have to take that into consideration if you're the defense cross examining her. Now, first of all, it's going to be a female defense lawyer who cross examines her. I mean, if they send a male to cross examine her, that is malpractice. And you know, you have to go after the prosecution's key witness. You have to be pointed and aggressive, but you also don't want to come across as being domineering or a bully. And so I think the fact that she's in her third trimester would also play in there.
- [13:48]
Ellie Hoenig
Ellie, help me out here. I mean, just, just play with me for a little bit here. Why would it be malpractice to say, I mean, for obvious. I know the answer, but I want you to articulate it to the audience. Why would it be malpractice to send a male attorney up there to question Cassi Ventura? What if it were an absolutely brilliant attorney who was suave, who know how to be very, very charming to a jury, et cetera? Why would it be malpractice to send a male attorney up there to question Cassie Ventura? Educate our audience.
- [14:20]
Ryan Seacrest
A lot of it's just an appearance issue. Look, this case is about a male abusing females. And so look, cross examination could get pointed. And you don't want to be in a position where the jury's watching a male defense lawyer, you know, not literally, but figuratively beat up on a very pregnant female witness, slash victim. So I think there's a sensitivity there. Also, look, there may need to be cross examination about some of the nuances and details of the sexual activity. The freak offs. Look, there was testimony, for example, Cassie Ventura testified that at times she was made to do these freak offs while she was menstruating. And so those are questions that are much more comfortably asked by a female of a female than a male of a female.
- [15:06]
Ellie Hoenig
Am I wrong? Is saying this, Ellie, does this sound even worse than R. Kelly? Am I wrong?
- [15:14]
Ryan Seacrest
It's interesting how you look at it. I mean, R. Kelly, I think there was probably more violence. I mean, I know we have the videotape in this case, the number of victims, I think was more with R. Kelly. But boy, the sort of full court domination of these women mentally, physically, sexually, career wise in the Sean Combs case, I think is in a different category.
- [15:39]
Ellie Hoenig
Last question for you, Ellie. Cassie's husband, I'm being told he may be called to testify in this trial, yet he was in court on Monday. First of all, is that ordinary? Is that something that's typical? I don't know whether or not that is. And what do you think about the notion of him giving testimony in all of this?
- [15:55]
Ryan Seacrest
This. So it's interesting because normally, if somebody is a potential witness, they're supposed to be what we call sequestered, meaning they're not supposed to be in the courtroom because you don't want witness A seeing what witness B is saying because they might conform their testimony to be consistent or to contradict that. So ordinarily, whichever side is thinking of calling a witness should make sure that that witness is not in the courtroom while other witnesses are testifying. If he is called. Look, you know, if either side needs him to come to the stand, they will subpoena him. He will have to take the stand. I'm not sure what his relevance would be. It could be that the defense thinks he undercuts some aspects of Cassidy's testimony. Maybe she's had conversations with him that contradict things she said on the stand. Or on the other hand, maybe he supports some of the things she said. Maybe he met her at a time when she made certain statements to him that could be relevant now. So that would be a risky move, I think, for either side. But, you know, these are high stakes scenarios, Stephen A. And sometimes you have to make tricky calls. So we'll see. This. This reminds me of being back there at the prosecutor's office and are we happy with what we got or do we need to roll the dice here on another witness?
- [17:05]
Ellie Hoenig
Absolute. Last question. If you're the defense team, how are you feeling today?
- [17:10]
Ryan Seacrest
I'm feeling okay thus far because if I'm the defense team, my strategy is you can believe Cassie Ventura. Even if you believe her, though this was a 10, 11 year consensual relationship. And so I'm in a position on the one hand where I don't have to convince the jury that this eight months pregnant, likable, well spoken, sympathetic woman is some kind of lunatic liar. On the other hand, though, let me give the other side. I'd be worried, though, because that videotape is so bad and the visceral nature of her testimony and what she went through is so shocking. I'd be worried about what you talked about a few minutes ago, Stephen, which is just, is the overwhelming disgust for this guy, for Diddy, going to just be so much that it overwhelms everything else?
- [17:58]
Ellie Hoenig
My apologies. You just brought up something very, very quickly. The fact that the whole tape is a, the whole tape has been released.
- [18:04]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. So look, the, I don't know whether we'll get to see it in the public, but that tape is a crucial piece of evidence you're going to need, the jury's going to need to see and consider every bit of that. And they actually had Cassidy Ventura narrating it sort of piece by piece, which I think is really important, A, because it bolsters Cassidy Ventura's testimony, but B, it allows a firsthand participant, the victim, to tell the jury exactly what they're seeing there and what's happening each step of the way.
- [18:30]
Ellie Hoenig
Ellie Hoenig, CNN legal analyst extraordinaire right here on the Stephen A. Smith Show. Appreciate you, buddy. Thank you so much for your time, man. I know you. All right.
- [18:43]
Stephen A. Smith
Welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non stop action and world class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevated. The New York Liberty are the reigning champions and the Golden State State Valkyries are the newest team to join the league since 2008. Watch the WNBA this season on ABC, CBS, ESPN, ION and Prime starting May 16th.
- [19:15]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [19:42]
Ellie Hoenig
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- [19:44]
Ryan Seacrest
You're listening to an iHeart podcast.